Context and Content of the Book of Revelation

Now we will discuss that very strange, sketchy, and scary Book of Revelation (BOR). It has been paraded around like the quintessential boogie man by certain groups for centuries. The state of the world right now is due, mostly, to people who think they understand prophecy and are helping it to become reality as they think it should be. This includes certain high ranking policy making politicians. I know people who have sold their house because their preacher said the rapture was immanent only to be found wrong. People have jacked up their credit card debt because of the belief they will be raptured and won’t have to pay their bills. The BOR has been much abused and used to incite old people into paying money to televangelists and the like. Yet, the worst part is, when the real deal happens, these same people are led astray into supporting the very beast they say they have rejected! The real deal is here now as the Eighth Apocalypse as I will demonstrate.

Climate change is happening faster than even the scientists were willing to predict, the world is choking on plastics, and general ecological collapse is happening everywhere. What we’re doing to the microbiome of the planet with the overuse of antibiotics, and water full of pharmaceuticals and chemicals, is apocalyptic in its own right. The human race is very much in dire straits.

Unfortunately, many world leaders have taken their cue from our current lawless dictator want-to-be and they’re all obsessed with destroying nature. The rainforest burns as I write. If that’s not enough, there is a veritable war of the billionaire class against the working class resulting in nothing less than feudalistic economic conditions for the mass of humanity. All these things are contained in this strange last book of the Bible as we shall see.

Baigent has a good discussion of the context of the time the BOR was written by John who was, apparently, not the same John as wrote the Gospel. This John was exiled on the Island of Patmos and had a great hatred of Rome and in his mind Rome was the primary subject of consideration. Even though writers may have their own conscious intention to write something, the collective unconscious, as proposed by Carl Jung, seeps through and presents a higher message.

As Baigent also shows, the three main religions of “the Book” (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) all have similar suicidal ideas of the coming of their own version of some special Messiah, and all of these beliefs are propagated by oligarchs using religion to justify their rape of mother nature and the pillage of the Earth.

This is what the Book of Revelation is really about. It’s not about the end of the world, as such. It’s about the destruction of the feudalistic, repressive, economic monolith which it calls “Babylon the Great”. It clearly states this name, “Babylon”, is allegorical. (Rev 11:8; 17:5; 18:2-3) Babylon the Great is the predatory, parasitic economy that preys on people using war as population control and profit making. It is this economy that will be destroyed along with those that perpetuate it.

Before it is destroyed, however, it will bloom in a stunning display of its brutality and greed in way not openly displayed before. No one ever shall think again that oligarchy and literalist fundamentalism are sustainable. I don’t know who ever said they were sustainable, except the kings and oligarchs who slaughtered multitudes to keep them “sustainable”.

The BOR has been usually interpreted as what God will do to us at the end of the world. More accurately it is about what we have done and are doing to ourselves. Truly, we know not what we do. Amid the environmental devastation we are wreaking on our self, the global economic world is being transformed into a globalized corporate fascist state. Fundamentalist Christianity is working right along to help this happen. How can there be an “antiChrist” if it is not based on some form of “Christianity” in the first place? The whole set of prophecies dealing with another round of world dominators are about the subjection of truth to a form of falsehood in a religious context on a massive scale. In another words, it’s “wolves in sheep’s clothing” jumping the fences in massive numbers. (Mt 7:15)

Observe the attempts of certain politicians trying to dissolve the division between church and state. which was anathema to the philosophy of the founding fathers and mothers who insisted on that separation based on their experience in Europe where the church and the king were basically united with detrimental results for the common person. If the separation between church and government is removed in this country there will be nothing short of a new dark ages and inquisition on a massive scale. Look at all the countries that have no such separation. I don’t want to live (or be murdered) there.

There are many stories in the Bible that have many allegorical meanings but are also rooted in some aspect of reality. The allegory of Adam and Eve is rooted in the reality of mental and personal development. The reality of the story of Noah and the flood is rooted in the reality that humans have been subjected to near extinction many times in our history, especially about 10,000 years ago in the Younger Dryas as documented by Hancock. Likewise, the story of the BOR is rooted in the reality that over and over in our recorded history there have been exploits of world domination. In other words, dysfunctional, sociopathic, self-hating imbeciles have become world leaders with catastrophic results time and time again! It’s happening again as world leaders declare themselves unimpeachable and exempt from elections. Fortunately, there are still some sane, just, and uncorrupted politicians in some countries, but even they are falling like dominoes pushed by an evil finger. We are in the Eighth Apocalypse and I’m not saying, “hallelujah”! I’m saying, “woe is us, and nature, because of literalist fundamentalism and oligarchy gone mad!”

God or Man as Destroyer?

Many people have wondered at the weirdness of the Book of Revelation. Why is God doing this to us poor humans? The answer is right there in the book where it says (somewhat paraphrased), “God will destroy those that destroy the Earth” (Rev 11:18). In Proverbs, Psalms, and the Book of Job, it is written that God takes great delight and joy in the natural world. He plays with the great crocodiles and flies with the flight of Eagles. He provides homes for the rabbits in the rocks and provides food for the young lioness and her cubs. He bursts open the clouds so the warehouse of rain can come forth and water the dry ground so the ox can have some food. Jesus said God knows about every sparrow that falls to the ground. (Prov. 8:22-31, Psalm 19, Job 39:26-30, Mt. 10:29). Real Christianity is nature positive in spite of what has been taught by fundamentalists and the church for the last two thousand years in order to turn us into nature haters instilled by the belief it is evil as taught by the church for their own power agenda.

The concern of God for the natural world is also written in the laws given to Moses. For example, “You shall not boil a calf in its mother’s milk” (Ex 23:19) as this is a bit of insult to injury. It was forbidden to cut down fruit trees, even in battle, because it was recognized fruit trees were important for life. (Deut 20:19-20) Also it is written, “You shall not muzzle the ox that treads out the grain”. (Deut 25:4,) Working animals need to eat.

Our compassion should extend to the conditions and feelings of animals. It was also required that the land lay fallow at certain times so as to minimize soil erosion and maintain its fertility (Ex 23:11). Every civilization that has lost the agricultural capacity of its soil has collapsed. This entire planet is now on the verge of collapse. The human race has not been a good student of planetary stewardship. Those that have opposed and fought against this destruction have been assassinated by the hundreds every year. They are the true martyrs of earth justice. Fortunately, Pope Francis and the Catholic Church have finally recognized the importance of our stewardship of nature.

The New Heaven and the New Earth

Over the years the church has promoted the idea that the physical world is fallen and evil and is hated by God and will be destroyed. This however is not a Biblical doctrine. Paul wrote, “the whole creation was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of the one who subjected the same in hope, because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.” (Rom. 8:20-22)

Who was the one that “subjected the same in hope”? In hope of what? Hope that the world would be revived from the stupidity of greedy humans? Who was this “One”? It was none other than Adam of Eden. Who else had subjected anything to anything other than Adam when he “fell”? It was his choice, by the way, as discussed in previous essays.

Many have taken this idea of the “fall” of Adam to mean that the creation fell along with Adam and is evil and should be destroyed. In contrast, what the verse from Romans quoted above is really saying is that the whole creation groans and agonizes as the result of the abuse heaped upon it by the greedy earth destroyers and will someday be freed from them. In this case the children of God are not those religionists who work with the beast to destroy the planet but those who work to save and nurture it.

Paul also wrote that the natural physical world is a witness to the truth and righteousness of God, even His eternal power and Godhead. (Rom 1:19-20) How can an evil, fallen, natural world be a witness for the truth of God? David wrote that the Heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament shows his handiwork (Psa.19). Yet, the religious world thinks they have a God given right to destroy nature and they aid and abet the earth destroyers. They think anyone who loves nature and cherishes it is some kind of pagan or witch and should be persecuted, tortured, and murdered as they have been throughout history.

The idea of the new earth and new heaven as believed by fundamentalists is quoted in 2nd Peter, 3:13: “Nevertheless, we, according to the promise, look for a new heavens and a new earth, where dwells righteousness.” The idea of getting a new earth and new heaven is a major concept to fundamentalists. However, in verse 12 of the same chapter it is said the heavens become on fire and shall be dissolved and the elements shall melt with fervent heat. This is a repetition of what was stated in verse 10 where it is said, “But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the middle of the night; in which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein will be burned up.” Elements melting with a fervent heat is nothing else than a nuclear meltdown. The fundamentalist want to live in the results of a nuclear holocaust? They think this is the “Millennium”?

First of all, there is no mention of the heaven and earth being destroyed by greed and stupidity causing the entire collapse of global ecosystems resulting in the second coming of Jesus. The “heaven” in our current situation is the atmosphere being destroyed by climate change and toxic pollution resulting in the death of millions and the crippling of billions. This is being caused by humans and not God. The fact is, all the talk about humans forcing the return of Jesus by destroying the planet is nowhere found in the Bible. This is the great lie spread by the church in league with the earth destroying psychopaths. Using the word, “psychopath” is not name calling. It is a diagnostic term of mental derangement and sociopathic values.

In order for the heaven to pass away with a great noise and the elements to melt with fervent heat, as stated in 2nd Peter, means life on earth is over, kaput. Whether it’s caused by a nuclear war caused by ranting psychopaths arguing over a game of checkers, or a major asteroid/comet impact, or the expansion of our sun to the red dwarf stage which will occur in about five billion years or so, is not indicated. The point is there is nothing encouraging people to incite ecocide to bring about the return of Jesus. Not wanting to be repetitious, I will repeat it is written that, “God will destroy those that destroy the Earth” (Rev 11:18)

The Beginning of the End Caused by Oligarchs and Literal Fundamentalism

Many people have read the BOR and concluded that it’s just that self-hating Old Testament God again, haranguing away at the humans that he made in his own image. He/she tried to drown them once but that didn’t work. But, the real issue is that our entire global economy is based on war and slavery. The weapons industry is the largest industry on the planet followed by the banking industry. Sex slave trafficking is at least the third largest. Wars are waged for profit. It is not just recently, but it has always been this way from the Persians, Babylonians, Greeks, Egyptians, and Romans. Hitler did it again in the 1940s. The only way that Hitler was able to build his war machine was because of investors in his enterprise. Henry Wallace, the vice president under Franklin Roosevelt studied and documented this fact. (Stone)

Now multinational corporations have infected the United States government and are trying, with great success, to turn US into a new Roman Empire and a plutocratic police state. This has been going on big time in the last fifty-six years since John F. Kennedy was assassinated, but has gone full throttle since Bush and Cheney were appointed by a corrupted supreme court. Now our government, as of 2019, is controlled by a complete racist, woman and earth-hating psychopath whose whole mission is to destroy the government, economy and the environment of the United States because he was traumatized as child when rejected by his own mother. It is a pathetic story. Another story of self-hate over-compensated by narcissism. Russian oligarchs are involved as well. Not just Russian oligarchs but the oligarchs of all the world which is very significant as we will examine the “horns” of the beast.

The Beast of the Apocalypse

As the result of the supreme court ruling that corporations are a “person” and have all the same rights of free speech and can use their money as speech has completely animated the Beast of the Apocalypse! The corporate Beast is ravaging the planet and killing billions of people and animals and plants. People wonder why the God of the Old and New Testament is annoyed? Yet, these lawless psychopaths have the complete backing and support of the evangelical community! Why is that? “Who is like the beast? Who can make war with the beast” (Rev. 13:4) It is because of the “strong delusion” which will be discussed in subsequent essays.

To say the multinational corporations are, “The Beast” as mentioned in the BOR, is not socialist and even not anti-business. Sans national corporations themselves are anti-business. Corporatism is not capitalism. Corporatism controls the market so there can be no competition even though they boast about the so called, “free-market”. How many local small businesses have Mega Mart discount chain stores put out of business in the name of free-market capitalism? Millions. The workers in those places end up as slave labor. Now the stores themselves are being put out of business by online shopping by people who have no clue what corner they are painting themselves into. We seem to have forgotten that capitalism is based on competition. What do people think is going to happen when there is only one purveyor of commodities and food? Economic slavery? Feudalism? Soylent Green? All the above? Check!

Capitalism and entrepreneurship is great at the right scale, but when it gets so big it can buy politicians under the guise of “free speech”, that is a problem. The real trap is all the globalized systems are interlocked and there is no escaping it. The very corporations that enslave masses are the source for investments for pension funds of others. At least for those that have pensions funds. Many hundreds of millions have lost their pension funds to vulture hedge funds. These parasites do not create wealth. They steal it from others. They are not job creators, they are job destroyers. Reagan’s “trickle down economics” is a lie, at least for the middle class. It has been great for the billionaires and is the cause of the current income and wealth inequality to the point of becoming outright feudalism in our time.

Economically, we have created the worst beast imaginable. It is a golem of global proportions. A truly unstoppable beast. It is a consortium of extremely greedy sociopathic people who have formed business companies that has been given all the legal rights and protections of a real living person. In fact, they have more rights than an individual and even more rights than a sovereign nation. The word “corporation” means a body with “rights”. It’s the “Beast”, a corporate body with rights and powers over everyone else. Who is like the beast? Who can make war with the Beast? (Rev. 13:4 ) The whole idea of “the Beast” and the “Antichrist” and “Babylon the Great” as discussed in the BOR is based on a world made in human image based on exploitation economics and disaster capitalism as outlined by Naomi Klein.

The point of all this is that it is not just, “politics”. It is not just, “partisanship”. It’s not a football game. Serious things are going on and have been for the last fifty years in America, but is plainly obvious in the last three years for those that have eyes to see. Greta Thunberg has eyes to see and she has a right to be extremely angry. All the children rebelling because they recognize what’s going on is a good example of what the real coming of Christ is about. People waking up!

The Basis of the Eighth Apocalypse

It is generally thought that the Book of Revelation mentions only one Antichrist as the consummate end of the world and it would only occur in the “last days”. In contrast, the BOR actually mentions seven, eight, in fact. The “antichrist” is not so much an individual person (contrary to most movies) but is a force of global domination. At the time the BOR was written Rome was the current world dominator, at least in western culture. It was said to John, “Five have been, one is, and one is to come who will also be the eighth” (Rev 17:7-11). The five prior to the time of writing of the BOR refers to the Babylonian, Median, Persian, Greek, and Ptolemaic empire. These are discussed in the Book of Daniel (Dan. 10-12). The one that currently existed at the time of writing of the BOR was Rome with the famous “666” referring to the name of Nero in cabalistic terms.

The seventh antichrist to come was Hitler, in my interpretation. It is said of this one, “his deadly wound was healed”. Thus, some form of Nazism would be revived as the Eighth Antichrist. What is Naziism? It is a kleptocratic oligarchy that justifies its actions with a religious premise. Naziism embraces religions as a way to sway people into their agenda. They tried to steal the Jewish wisdom while they tried to exterminate the Jewish people that brought it so they could claim it themselves. This is what the Catholic church has always done to indigenous cultures. It is happening again as fundamentalists claim God as their justification for ecocide and genocide. Spong wrote much about the Gentile literalist heresy as the result of the theft of Jewish writings.

People think the bible is not political? It’s all political and about who worships who or what. Read the Old Testament, especially the part about Saul the psycho king as discussed in a previous essay. Almost all of the Old Testament, except for the five books of the Pentateuch, is about the demise of the nation of Israel as the result of corrupt politics intertwined with religion and false prophets. History is repeating itself once again and we seem to be next to be destroyed as a nation as the result of false prophets and corrupt politicians. Go read the books of Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles.

The Rapture

Whoops, I almost forgot, the rapture hasn’t happened yet so we can’t be in the Eighth Apocalypse now…can we? It is generally thought by fundamentalists that the rapture would occur before the events in the BOR began. This is based on the second and third chapters of the BOR where there are seven letters to the seven churches. These two chapters are considered to be equivalent to the “Church Age”. The beginning of the fourth chapter begins with “And after these things I beheld a door open in heaven and a voice said “come up here” (Rev 4:1). It was then that John went up there and saw the rest of his vision. This is taken by many religionists to be representative of the rapture and the church will not have to suffer the horrors of “The Tribulation” which they themselves have helped to cause. Thus the “Left Behind” books and all the rest. (Baigent)

Unfortunately, this whole concept has been whipped up by preachers for the usual reasons. There are some problems with this reasoning, however. The problem comes in with interpreting the phrase, “after this things etc.” (Rev 5:1) as the rapture. For one thing, the fundamentalist church is still around during the “tribulation” as we shall see and is referred to as, “Mystery, Babylon the Great”. (Rev. 17:1-7)

And there are other problems. First of all, Paul says that the rapture will not occur until after the antichrist is revealed. This is the same place that he discusses the strong delusion that would be sent to deceive the fundamentalist church. (2 Thess. 2:11) Jesus mentions that “One will be taken and another left” (Mt 24:40) but not until after a period of tumult, wars and rumors of wars, and great destruction. (Mt. 24: 3-39) Basically what the Church has done, again, is use the rapture to encourage people to join churches as a way to escape the results of planetary abuse in order to boost their memberships.

I will not say that the rapture is not true. I will say, however, that like every other preconceived idea of what the Bible says, the popular advertised concept is not accurate. It never has been and never will be. At the very least, the timing of the rapture is not understood at all, and Jesus said it couldn’t be. (Mt 24:36)

The human masses have been blasted and brainwashed with the oligarch’s agenda and fear mongering for the last ten thousand years. Yet, it is very encouraging that many people are becoming more aware of that ruse. But then there is the problem of fake news which is the real fake news calling the real news fake. What’s a person to think? This is all part of the croaking frogs and strong delusions as will be discussed in future essays.

Jesus said of this time, “For many shall come in my name saying, ‘I am Christ’ and shall deceive many. And you shall hear of wars and rumors of wars… nations shall rise against nation, and kingdoms against kingdom… and many false prophets shall rise and deceive many… in so much that if it were possible , they shall deceive the very elect.” (Mt 24:5-35) This is a very shortened version of the 24th chapter of Matthew and I highly recommend that one read the entire chapter.

The Ultimate Question

So, what the heck is going on here? Are we really only collateral damage in a war between God and Satan? According to Pagles, certain aspects of gnostic beliefs thought the bad god, referred to as the Demiurge, made physical reality just to capture poor souls and physical matter, is all inherently evil. According to Godwin, it was thought that everything revolved around “the Watchers”, referred to as the Egregore, who were the angels, gods, or spirits that were responsible for cohesiveness of the city/states to survive. They were the ones that were fed by animal and human sacrifice. We could also be the result of cross-breeding of animals and extraterrestrials as Sitchin has proposed. Well, I am a scientist and I prefer the simplest solution, although it isn’t really simple at all. That solution is evolution. Are we progressing, or, are we regressing in spirit and awareness? The Bible is all about evolution! If God is all powerful, why did he/she make a perfect person (Adam) that would fail? We all need to fail, acknowledge our errors, get over it, and move on. This is Life! This is the power of “resurrection” in everyday terms.

If we zoom out to the scale of the universe we see that the vast majority of matter is raging stars, exploding supernovas, and matter sucking black holes. Yet, in at least one mediocre galaxy there is at least one mediocre star in some obscure corner with a few orbiting planets. One of those planets, at just the right distance from the sun, has just enough density for gravity to hold onto liquid water and a gaseous atmosphere. As the result of a very tumultuous evolutionary process involving several major extinction events, self-aware beings have emerged and I’m not just referring to Homo Sapiens.

As we zoom in closer and closer to the scale of Homo Sapiens we see the same processes going on as the rest of the universe but expressed in a different manner. The universe is holographic and fractal. What goes on at the scale of the universe as supernovas and black holes goes on at the scale of humans manifested as war and greed. Is not a psychopathically greedy person the same principle as a black hole that sucks up everything in its path? Yet, gravity is not evil. It’s a question of balance.

At the human scale, there are a few people who have evolved past the greed. Some have evolved past the cycle of hate inciting hate. They don’t need to suck up everything trying to fill the bottomless pit of their empty soul. The evolved people actually give back because they are full and overflowing! The alchemy of the processes of spiritual evolution is complex. If we could just remember that it took the very same raging stars and supernovas for us to exist, we might be able to find our way into the next level of multidimensional thinking by following the fractal of light, the same light that created the universe in the beginning.

In Rev. 13:10 it is written, “He that leads into captivity shall go into captivity. He that kills with the sword shall be killed with the sword. Here is the faith and patience of the saints”. Karma is a biblical concept! There are two things we must focus on. The first is our own enlightenment and the second is the enlightenment of the world. Ultimately, they are one and the same as one shall understand when one understands.

Read Part 2 here.

Read Part 3. here.

Read Part 4. here.

Bibliography

Baigent, Michael; Racing Toward Armageddon-The Three Great Religions and the plot to End the World; Harper One; 2009
Godwin, Joscelyn; The Golden Thread-The Ageless Wisdom of the Western Mystery Traditions; Quest Books; 2007.
Hancock, Graham; Magicians of the Gods; Thomas Dunne Books; 2015
Harari, Yuval Noah; Sapiens–A Brief History of Humankind; Vintage Books; 2011.
Klein, Naomi; The Shock Doctrine-the Rise of Disaster Capitalism; Picador; 2007.
Pagels, Elaine; The Gnostic Gospels; Vintage Books; 1979.
Sitchin, Zechariah; The 12th Planet; Stein and Day; 1976.
Spong, John Shelby; Biblical literalism–A Gentile Heresy; Harper Collins Publishers; 2016.
Stone, Oliver; The Untold History of the United States; 2012.