Revelation 10: An Intermission at the Apocalypse

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The Angel and the Little Scroll (v. 1-11)

Then John saw another angel come down from heaven on a cloud with a rainbow over his head. His face was like the sun, and his legs were like pillars of fire. He was holding a little scroll in his right hand, his right foot was on the sea and his left foot on land, his voice was like a roaring lion. When he called out the seven thunders sounded.

I have no idea which details here are important or what any of it means. The seven thunders jumped out to me, but as with the rest of this, I have no idea what to make of it.

Again, Guzik. Some people say that this angel is supposed to be Jesus, others think it is angel of the lord Michael. The little scroll represents authority of some kind. The place where he put is feet represents his authority over all of the earth. The seven thunders are apparently the voice of the lord, from Psalm 29.

When John heard the seven thunders, he was going to write down what they said, but a voice from heaven told him not to. Then the angel raised his right hand to heaven and swore to God that there would be not more delay, but that the seventh trumpet would be sounded as announced.

So this angel is promising God that there would be no delay, does that mean he is interrupting the process to do what he's doing?

Apparently the delay is an act of mercy as it allows more time for repentance. I wonder if this is something that Guzik just made up, or if something comes up later mentioning this. Because I would think that it is too late to get the seal from God at this point.

There is apparently much discussion about the fact that John was told not to write down what God said. What was he instructed not to tell us, some think it is a message that some stuff will not be revealed until then.

John was told to get the scroll from the angel, and when he did the angel told him to eat it, it will be sweet in his mouth but bitter in his stomach. He was then told he was to prophecy to many people.

What?

The scroll represents the word of God. The fact that he is told to eat it but not forced is important because no one can have the word forced upon them, they must take it willingly. I would argue that in this situation he really had no choice. The analogy of a gunman asking you for your wallet and then saying it was your choice seems apt to me here. John was really not in a position to say no. Also, what is the relevance of the word of God being bitter in your stomach?

Revelation 9: God Loves Torture

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The Seven Trumpets [cont] (v. 1-21)

The fifth angel blew his trumpet which made a star fall to earth, which was a key to the shaft of the bottomless pit. The angel opened the pit, and smoke rose like that from a great furnace which darkened the air and blocked out the sun. Then locusts with the power of scorpions came out of the smoke. They were told not to harm grass, trees, or other plants, but only people without the seal of God. They were allowed to torment those people for 5 months but not kill them, those people will seek death but will not find it.

So now God has gone beyond killing people and he is torturing them. Why would he spend 5 months making them wish they were dead and not allowing them to die? I suppose this doesn't sound like such a bad thing to people who have rationalized the idea that their good god tortures people for all eternity, but to me this is something that could only be done by a complete monster.

Again, Guzik. The star that fell from heaven was probably an angel, perhaps Satan himself. About the locust "Their purpose and period is expressly governed by God, and the purpose of all this to bring repentance " I'm disgusted here.

A minor point as well, the locusts were told not to harm the grass, but all of the grass burned up last chapter.

The locusts looked like horses preparing for battle, they what looked like crowns of gold on their heads, they had human faces with women's hair, lions teeth, they had breastplates of iron and their wings made the noise of chariots rushing into battle. Their tails had the stings of scorpions.

Why even call them locusts?

"Why would God call them locusts if they are not literal locusts, but demonic spirits who swarm and destroy like locusts? Among other reasons, because locusts are agents of God’s judgment. This is a consistent Old Testament figure in passages like Exodus 10:4-14; Deuteronomy 28:38; 1 Kings 8:37; 2 Chronicles 7:13; Joel 1:4, and Amos 4:9."

The answer to the angel who is king of the bottomless pit, whose name is Abaddon in Hebrew and Apollyon in Greek.

This supposed to be hell right?

The sixth angel blew his trumpet and the "four angels who had been prepared for the hour" were released

Presumably this is the 4 horsemen

They had 200,000,000 troops with which they used to kill a third of mankind. They wore breastplates the color of fire, sapphire and sulfur, the heads of the horses were like lion's heads with fire, smoke and sulfur coming out of their mouths. The tails of the horses were like serpents.

I'm starting to think that John was high even if he had intended this to not be taken literally.

The remaining people did not repent of their works, they did not give up worshiping demons or idols of gold, silver, bronze, stone and wood. They did not repent of their murders, sorceries, sexual immorality, or their thefts.

I guess the message here is that even under these extremes, non-Christians will still not give up their sinful ways or something. Basically this is just more demonizing of outsiders. 

Pretty much what I expected 

In general, mankind shows no repentance, despite the presence of some pretty overwhelming “signs and wonders.”

 I'm not really sure how I would react to seeing this kind of thing. I would never worship a God this terrible, but I would sure as hell pretend to if I thought it would save me.

It is amazing to see how quickly things return to “normal” after some calamity such as an earthquake. We are so quick to forget God’s lessons, even the lessons that come in judgment.

It's amazing to me that he would even compare the events described in Revelation to an earthquake. Natural phenomenon compared to demons set loose to kill a huge portion of the people on the planet.

What did we learn today?

Revelation 9:5-6 God loves Torture

"They were allowed to torment them for five months, but not to kill them, and their torment was like the torment of a scorpion when it stings someone. And in those days people will seek death and will not find it. They will long to die, but death will flee from them."

Is the Universe Fine Tuned for life?

Yesterday I talked about the idea that the Earth is fine tuned for human life, today I wanted to discuss the idea that the universe itself is fine tuned. The idea of course being that things have been fine tuned for us, and therefore it must be the work of a creator God of some fashion. As I argued yesterday, the sheer number of stars and planets out there pretty much destroys this idea when it comes to the earth being fine tuned, every planet is a potential place where life could form, and with so many in the sky it is inevitable that everything will work out somewhere. Things are not so easy when it comes to the fine tuning of the universe.

The argument goes that there are a handful of fundamental constants of the universe that are just perfect for the universe to unfold in such a way that life could exist. Via a quick google search, I landed on the following page which says the constants are:

• Ratio of Electrons to Protons
• Ratio of Electromagnetic Force to Gravity
• Expansion Rate of Universe
• Mass Density of Universe
• Cosmological Constant

If any of these constants were every so slightly different from what they are, life would be impossible and therefore the odds of this happening randomly are incomprehensibly low. Therefore, there must be an intelligent God out there pulling the strings so that everything will come out just right. Obviously, I think that apologists jump to the God conclusion too quickly, they claim that God is the only possible answer to this puzzle, I think there are several other reasonable possibilities.

1. All of this is built on the assumption that there is only 1 universe, it is certainly possible that we are part of a larger multiverse, and each universe within the multiverse has a different set of universal constants. Alternatively, it is possible that our universe will eventually collapse into a singularity and there will be a new big bang, creating a new universe with new universal constants. In this case, we are merely one link in a chain of universes, and perhaps many of those links do not indeed have life. In this possibility, the argument becomes pretty much a carbon copy of what I said yesterday. We exist in the universe where we are possible and observe it and say that it is amazing, when really there are many other potentially empty universes that we just can't see. Ancient people didn't know there were other planets, maybe we are in an analogous position today.

2. Fine tuning argues that we are lucky these constants are exactly what they are, but this assumes that it would be possible for them to be any different. Maybe due to things that we don't understand these constants just have to be exactly what they are. Let me try to explain this idea with an analogy, suppose we are looking from above at a piece of glass with a marble on it, and we are considering the odds of that marble sitting exactly where it is sitting. If we want to do a calculation, we could simply figure out how far we will allow the marble to move before we consider that in a different place, compare that to the area of the glass, do a quick division and then give the percentage chance of the marble being in this exact place. What is the hidden assumption here? That the marble is sitting on a flat pane of glass. Suppose instead that glass is in the shape of a bowl, and there is a unique spot in the center that is the lower than all the others. In this case, there is no chance that the marble is sitting anywhere else on the glass, no matter where we set the marble, it will roll to the middle. (since we viewed it from above, we could not tell that the glass was curved) Perhaps the universal constants are the similar, we might ask why the ratio of protons to electrons isn't different, the correct answer might be that due to the way protons and electrons are created, this is simply impossible. We didn't get lucky that the marble was in the exact center of the glass, if it was placed anywhere else it would always roll to that spot.

3. Perhaps apologists are incorrect that a slight change in the universal constants would prevent life from forming. Indeed, Victor Stenger has done computer simulations and has concluded that if these constants are out of the range that apologists claim are required for life to be possible, we still wind up with a universe where life can exist.

The real point here is that the fine tuning argument is supposed to be an argument which proves that God exists. It absolutely fails this task. It relies on several assumptions that it never proves. It's points to a bunch of constants that seem pretty remarkable and then asserts that the only way these constants could be this way is if God set them up. The reality is that we simply don't know why those constants are what they are, but our lack of knowledge does not point to God. As with many apologetics, the fine tuning argument boils down to an argument from ignorance. I, for one, am not impressed.

Is the Earth Fine Tuned for Life?

I was in a discussion with someone on twitter recently and the topic of fine-tuning came up. He argued that both the earth and the universe were fine-tuned for humans. I want to discuss the earth first because it is an easier argument, so it seems natural to start there.

There are many things about the earth that are just right for humanity to survive here. We are the right distance from the sun, there is the right amount of water on the planet, there's even jupiter in the solar system which seems to help reduce the number of asteroid impacts that we have to deal with. I'm sure there are many other things about our planet that are set up just perfect for life. This is interesting and cool, but does it point to God?

Let's suppose that we have this laundry list of conditions that have to be just right for life to exist on our planet. Let's also suppose that the odds of any given star randomly ending up with all of these conditions is about 1 in a billion (I have no idea how we could determine odds like this, but the real point is just that it is incredibly unlikely). If there are also a billion stars out there, maybe the fact that this 1 in a billion coincidence happened somewhere isn't quite so amazing anymore.

So how many stars are really out there? According to wikipedia, our galaxy has somewhere between 200-400 billion stars. But that is just one galaxy out of many, if you go to http://hubblesite.org, you can see many pictures like the one below which shows a huge number of galaxies, each with a huge number of stars within.

If each star represents a chance for intelligent life to evolve, the fact that it happened somewhere is actually not terribly remarkable. And wherever it happens is the only place where those intelligent beings are going to be able to look at their surroundings and say "wow, it's amazing that all of these unlikely things have happened here that allow us to exist!" But if they only consider their own solar system, if they don't consider the trillions of other stars that (as far as they know) don't have intelligent life, then they are really cherry picking the data.

Revelation 8: All Heaven Breaks Loose

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The Seventh Seal and the Golden Censer (v. 1-5)

The lamb broke the 7th seal and there was silence in heaven for a half hour.

Seems like this half hour of silence has some significance, but I can only guess at what it is...so I will. Maybe it is that everyone stops everything to watch to see what will happen, like a moment where everyone is fixated on a single thing and the room is silent, except this is such a huge event that moment drags out...for a half hour. Another guess, it is like a moment of silence when someone dies, except it is the whole world, so it stretches out way longer than normal.

I did pretty good on this one, Guzik seems to agree with my guesses. (And again, I'll use him as a source for the Christian commentary today unless otherwise stated)

Then seven angels are given trumpets, and another angel is given a censer. They burn a bunch of incense on a golden altar in front of the throne, and put fire in the censer and throw it down at the earth. It causes thunder, lightning and earthquakes.

It's on!

The Seven Trumpets (v. 6-13)

The first angel blows his trumpet, hail and fire were mixed with blood and thrown upon the earth. A third of the earth and a third of the trees were burned up. All grass was burned up.

Whoa!

The second angel blows his trumpet and something like a great mountain on fire fell into the sea. A third of the sea became blood, a third of the sea creatures died, and a third of the ships were destroyed.

I find the phrase "something like a great mountain" very interesting. It would seem to indicate that John is describing something that he can best identify as a mountain, but he knows is not actually a mountain. It seems to me to indicate to me that he is trying to be as accurate as possible, so if you ever want to argue that when he says X it was really Y, you have to be arguing that he was wrong, and thought it was really X. For example, when he says that a star fell from the sky, you can safely argue that he thought it was a star but it was really an asteroid. When he says he saw a creature with six wings, I would argue he's telling us what he thinks he saw.

The third angel blows his trumpet and a great star (named wormwood) fell from heaven blazing like a torch. It fell on a third of the rivers and on the springs of water. A third of the water became wormwood and people died from the water because it was bitter.

Isn't wormwood what absinthe is made of? That stuff makes you hallucinate. Maybe that explains this whole thing.

The fourth angel blows his trumpet and a third of the sun, moon, and stars were struck so that a third of their light would be darkened. So a third of the day and a third of the night would be kept from shining.

How the hell do you darken a third of the sun?

Then John looked overhead and saw an eagle crying woe to people on the earth.

Wait, so eagles can talk? Also, they can fly above heaven?

What did we learn today?

I usually use this space to isolate verses which I will put in the overview, but today I pretty much just want to reference the entire reading. God is a violent monster. He's raining destruction down on people on such a massive scale it is hard to imagine. How anyone can call him a loving God is beyond me. I suppose if people can spin noah's flood to be a good thing they will be able to do the same here, but I just don't see it.

Revelation 7: Heaven is Serving God Night and Day

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The 144,000 of Israel Sealed (v. 1-8)

Then John saw 4 angels standing on the corners of the earth, holding back the wind so that not wind would blow anywhere on the earth.

I thought I was reading a science textbook for a second there. Clearly the bible should be used as a primary source in science class in high school.

Again, today I will be relying on Guzik's commentary. He says that the 4 corners of the earth means the 4 points of the compass. I don't really know what that means, is it just north, south, east, and west? That doesn't really describe points on the earth. I suppose north and south could be the poles, but for east and west we really don't have something like that. At any rate, this clearly seems like they are trying to cover up the ignorance of the writers of the bible to me.

The winds are supposed to be the destructive force of God's judgement. Potentially the 4 horsemen he just unleashed. So basically, according to this interpretation, God unleashed the 4 horsemen, and then sent some other angels to hold them back until it was time for the to begin their reign of destruction. Why wouldn't God just wait to unleash them until the time is right?

Then John saw another angel with the seal of the living God who called to "the four angels who had been given power to harm the earth and sea" (presumably the 4 horsemen we met last chapter). He told them not to harm anything until "we have sealed the servants of our God on their forehead". 144,000, 12,000 from each tribe.

So the 4 horsemen have been told to wait until they mark 12,000 from each tribe, presumably so that they will avoid the coming destruction. Doesn't this mean that at most, there can only be 144,000 Christians at the time of the apocalypse. Further, last chapter didn't God say he is waiting until "their brothers should be complete"? That sounds to me like it means we are waiting until the numbers grow to 144,000. If I'm interpreting this correctly, that means there can never be more than 144,000 true Christians, otherwise the apocalypse would have already started.

Guzik tries to get around this by saying that it is mysterious what these 144,000 people are being marked for, but it is some kind of protection, but that protection isn't limited to these people. The holy spirit is also a seal of protection or something. Clearly seems like a later justification.

One other detail I picked out is that apparently Jehovah's witnesses claimed that their entire group would be the 144,000. This of course fell apart once their numbers exceeded 144,000 people.

A Great Multitude from Every Nation (v. 9-17)

John then looked around and saw a multitude of people from every nation wearing white robes crying out that salvation belongs to God. An angel then said that these are the people coming out of the great tribulation, they have washed their robes in the blood of the lamb.

So these people are clearly Christians. I bet this is the passage the people use to say that the apocalypse can't happen until Christianity is spread to every nation.

The multitude is protected by God's presence, and they will never be hungry or thirsty again. They are before the throne of God and they serve him day and night.

Is it just me, or does this seem like a really crappy afterlife? And why would an omnipotent God need to be served by a bunch of followers?

"Heaven is not only a place of rest from earthly toil but also a place of privileged service"

Yeah, I'll pass

What did we learn today?

--Afterlife--

Revelation 7:15 Heaven is serving God day and night

"Therefore they are before the throne of God, and serve him day and night in his temple"

--Science--

Revelation 7:1 The Earth has 4 corners, where wind originates from

"After this I saw four angels standing at the four corners of the earth, holding back the four winds of the earth, that no wind might blow on earth or sea or against any tree."

---

Today's comic: What is there to do in heaven?

Revelation 6: God is a Violent Monster

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The Seven Seals (v. 1-17)

Today we are reading about the 7 seals upon the scroll from last chapter. Jesus will break the first 6 (presumably he will break the 7th in a future chapter), and each one releases something.

When he broke the first seal, a rider with a bow on a white horse emerged. He was given a crown. He came out conquering and to conquer.

The more I read Revelation, the more I think that they are using the word conquer differently than we use it today. What the hell could it mean that he "came out conquering"? He is surrounded by angels, elders, cherubim, and he is standing next to God and Jesus. What exactly is he conquering right now? Actually, since I'm thinking about it, why not look at some alternate translations! NIV says "he rode out as a conqueror bent on conquest", BBE says "he went out with power to overcome", there are a few others along those lines. This makes a lot more sense to me.

Again, I will use Guzik as my main source for the Christian commentary today. Apparently there is much debate about this first rider. Some think he is Jesus, others think he is the anti-Christ. That is quite a range. From the perspective of him being the anti-Christ, we have the following quote:

This final satanic dictator over men will be the more terrible than all previous dictators were. He will rule over men as a false Messiah, and lead man in organized rebellion against God, in the pattern of Nimrod, his first predecessor. He is the one often called the antichrist.

I guess this is as good a time as any to ask a question about the very idea of the apocalypse. Why do we need it at all? How could a loving God unleash such things on the world? I suppose it's not terribly different from Noah's flood in this respect.

The second seal released a rider on a red horse. He was given a great sword and was permitted to take peace from the earth so that people would take one another.

I guess this is War. It makes me wonder what it means to remove peace from the earth. Presumably there are people on the earth who want to fight each other, but aren't for some reason. Is War (with God's blessing) simply removing those reasons? Somehow screwing up some uneasy peace treaty that the people had set up. Or is he simply manipulating their brains to make them go and fight despite their previous reasons for making peace? In either case, God seems to be a violent monster, in the worst case he is also messing with free will.

I love the way they deal with this problem

Peace between men and nations is a gift from God. It is not the natural state of relations between men.

So God isn't manipulating people to cause war, he is removing the peace that he had given them. Again, we see the twisted worldview that religion brings to us.

The third seal released a rider on a black horse with scales in his hand. He said "A quart of wheat for a denarius, and three quarts of barley for a denarius, and do not harm the oil and wine!"

What? The scales suggest Justice, or Injustice perhaps? Is wheat not supposed to be three times as valuable as barley? I don't understand the oil and wine thing.

Apparently the scales indicate a need to carefully measure food, these prices are about 12 times what they should be, they indicate scarcity and famine. The oil and wine indicate that nice things are still available to those who can afford it, I don't really get the point of this.

The forth seal had death riding a pale horse, and Hades followed him. They were given authority over a fourth of the earth to kill via sword, famine, pestilence, and by wild beasts.

The 4 horsemen have free rein on a forth of the earth? Brutal.

Power is given to the horseman, and given by God. Though all hell is breaking loose on the earth, God is very much in control. He still holds the scroll and opens the seals.

Umm...yeah, that is the problem I have with all of this.

The fifth seal contained those who had been slain for the word of God. They cried out asking God when he would avenge them who killed them and still dwell on the earth. They were given a white robe and told to wait a little longer until there were more of their brothers on earth, who would also be killed in the battle.

Wait, did I read that right? God is waiting to increase the number of his followers a little more, and once there are enough they will all die in the battle?

Breaking the 6th seal caused and earthquake, the sun became dark, the moon became like blood, the stars fell out of the sky, the sky vanished, and the mountains and islands were removed from their places. Everyone on earth from kings to slaves went and hid from God in caves.

This whole thing makes sense from the perspective of earth basically being a snowglobe with the various celestial bodies on the dome. Given what we know of cosmology, it makes no sense whatsoever. 

It is best to regard these pictures as real, but poetic. John isn’t using technically precise scientific language, but he simply describes what he saw.

The events described here are clearly ridiculous, and yet Guzik still wants to consider it true, so he say it is real, but just that John is describing things as he understands them. Some of it I suppose you can find a legitimate explanation for, comets producing "falling stars", a sudden storm blocking out the sun, but what about the mountains and islands being removed? Oh, it's poetic, great non-answer.

What did we learn today?

--Violence--

Revelation 6:4,8 God is a violent monster

"...Its rider was permitted to take peace from the earth, so that people should slay one another...they were given authority over a fourth of the earth, to kill with sword and with famine and with pestilence and by wild beasts of the earth."

--Free Will--

Revelation 6:4 God messes with free will

"...Its rider was permitted to take peace from the earth, so that people should slay one another..."