If you've never read it, I highly reccomend the last book of the Christian Bible - The Book of Revelation, sometimes calls Revelation of John or Apocolypse unto John, depending on who you ask.
It's a tome filled to the brim with symbolism and all manner of lurid and horrible things.
I discovered recently that a coworker believes every word of it as pure, unadultered fact.
In reading through Revelation, if you do, set aside a fairly large chunk of time. It's very difficult. One thing that helps, a lot, is learning about what the numbers really mean. The number 7 is perfection, i.e., God. 6 is imperfection, or man. 4 is the world, 12 are the twelve tribes of Isreal, or sometimes, just Isreal. And 1,000 is "a lot", or what we these days would use as "a kajillion bazillion thousand hundred".
My coworker. Where to begin? I was just playing at verbal sparring with an inferior partner (sometimes, you really are the smart one in a conversation, and it's fairly obvious to everyone involved) when the topic of Iraq and Bush and politics in general came up. I was told that we invaded Iraq for "good reasons".
Now, I couldn't let that stand. I did something akin to and asked, "What were they?"
Here's where I found I was talking to a ditto head. First, we had the Weapons of Mass Destruction.
"We didn't find any," I say.
It seems that there weren't any WMDs actually there, but that Saddam had the parts all there to make a WMD. I point out that I can go to the local hardware store and find all the parts to make a fairly potent chemical weapon. Sarcasticly, I ask, "Do we invade Home Depot?"
We move on, to Saddam was a bad man!
I agree, and ask if being a bad person is a good reason to invade a sovreign country. I point out Kim Jong Il is a bad person, as are several other leaders of several other countries. I query, "Why haven't we invaded them?"
Ah, it seems Saddam was part of Sept. 11! I laugh, and ask for proof, of which there is none.
We are back to Saddam with WMDs! This time, yellow cake uranium is mentioned, and I say, "Let's talk about Italy, shall we?" Details are given, and the WMD argument falls flat.
I ask, then, "Why did we invade Iraq?" The answer I get is, "They asked us to."
Again, .
"Who asked us to?"
"The people of Iraq."
"Which ones, the ones that hate us, or the ones that are killing our soldiers?" I ask.
We move on, the topic of general middle east instability comes up, and I mention something about Isreal possibly getting drawn into a war, and my coworker says,
"Isreal will NOT BE TOUCHED!"
I was sort of unprepared for this certainty of this assertion, and asked, "Why not?" She said, "I'm reading a book, and so far, it's been exactly right."
I think, "Oh bloody hell, this one's a religious nut. Totally talking 'bout Revelations." I say, "Oh, which book? Revelations?"
And I get a nod.
I say, "You know, John was pretty much talking about Rome as the Beast, and the Whore of Babylon is Emperor Nero." I get a look of cold steel, and decide to drop it.
And this diary is entirely pointless! Awesome. To top it off, because this is about Revelation, one of my favorite poems:
The Second Coming
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all convictions, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all around it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
by William Butler Yeats
I think tomorrow, I'll strike up a conversation about evolution. Let's see if this one's even read the Origin of Species or just assumes it is inscribed with inverted penagrams and 666 and "God is Dead; Long Live Evolution!!!!!one"