123rd page meme - OMG ARMGDDN

1. Pick up the nearest book (of at least 123 pages).
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the 5th Sentence.
4. Post the next 3 sentences.
5. Tag 5 people.

Here you go:

Islam is at once the most and the least interesting of the world's monotheisms. It builds upon its primitive Jewish and Christian predecessors, selecting a chunk here and a shard there, and thus, if these fall, it partly falls also. Its founding narrative likewise takes place within an astonishingly small compass, and relates facts about extremely tedious local quarrels.

'God Is Not Great' by Christopher Hitchens

I'm finally reading it ^^ Mom leant it to me while I was in hospital and I amusingly used the 'Chapalain Department's' advert thing as the bookmark. I forgot I was using it when they kicked me out, so I've still got it.

----

Caught the program 'Wonderland: The End Of The World Tour' last night.

My gods, that was a horrifyingly amsuing example of the length the fundies go to.

Basically, about forty people were 'Chosen' (apparently by God) to go on the tour of Isreal. The troup was mostly made up of Americans, but there was a small handful of Brits.

One American couple had recently lost their twenty-something only daughter, and were still grieving. One American woman confessed that she had found God after years of alchohol and drug abuse.

Another 'Southern Country Gal' in her sixties, was grieving for her lost life (apparently she was severely beaten by her father on a regular basis and had failed to find love or even contentment in any of her six marriage to men who were invariably between 18 and 23 years older than herself) who had joined the group so that she could be cleansed of her sins in the same river in which Jesus had been Baptised.

One of the most horrifying parts, was a conversation between three of the Fundies about how they thought the Final Battle would take place. One of the women grinned and nodded knowingly as she explained that Jesus would slay all the sinners with a sword he would pull from his mouth - to which another said he always believed that passage was more like a Star Trek phaser - Jesus would speak and rain 'phaser blasts or lightning' down on the sinners, with them exploding and spraying blood everywhere.

All three of these Fundies were laughing and grinning and happily describing the waist deep blood and the exploding bodies of the 'sinners', apparently content in the knowledge that they wouldn't be there, because of the ''Rapture', and as 'True Believers', they would already be in Heaven with God.

One woman actually admitted, quite happily, that to believe in the way she did, was indeed very close-minded. She said that it was her choice to be that way.

Something the freaked me out, quite considerably, was the seventeen year old photography student, the daughter of two particularly vehement Fundies, who was almost stronger in her belief than her own parents. She quite happily admitted to believing that the presenter would burn for eternity in Hell when he died. She looked very serious as she said this, explaining that she looked forward to all the sinners and non-believers leaving God's 'presence'. She claimed that all humanity was evil, right from the word go - that babies were born evil - and that the only way to cleanse oneself of this evil was to be Baptised into the same religion as herself.

The troup were split into smaller groups to take a short flight around the Armageddon Valley, where the Last Battle (of 200 million humans and Satan, against God) is supposed to take place. Afterwards, it was found that most of the troup believed that the battle would take place within their life times, and that a not inconsiderable portion of that group further believed that it would take place in the next five to ten years. And they all looked forward to it.

Barbara - the sixty-something southern gal - came to the presenter one morning and explain to him and his crew that God had given her a vision, telling her she needed to take a photograph of them at a 'place that would be revealed to her'. So they got in the car and drove - rather aimlessly, for quite some time - until she decided they had found the right spot.

While preparing to take the photograph, the presenter asked her about her views on the Palastinians. Apparently she would quite happily tell a grieving Palastinan family that thier loved one was burning in Hell - but would take offense if someone did the same thing to an Isreali family. She nearly cried in her passion when claiming that all people had to do was BELIEVE and God would come to them.

It was an embarassingly sad sight. I honestly believe this woman should go see a councellor, rather than wallow in the despair that is her religion.

When it came time to be Baptised, the tour guides changed the venue, and the troup was baptised in an adjoining river, instead of the actual one Jesus was baptised in. Most of them wept and praised Christ as they were dunked. Barbara wept before, during and after and then claimed she had been wiped of the sins that had made her life a living Hell, that from now on she could be calm.

It was quite a sight.

It ended with one member of the group telling the presenter that he had been called to make this program for a reason, that he was now accountable, because he 'couldn't say he hadn't been told' (which is a rather brilliant piece of grammatical tongue-twistery).

All in all - I was rather horrified by the whole thing.

H