{"id":38876,"date":"2011-05-20T13:13:17","date_gmt":"2011-05-20T18:13:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/?p=38876"},"modified":"2011-05-20T17:59:19","modified_gmt":"2011-05-20T22:59:19","slug":"in-case-you-think-you-want-to-be-saved","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/daily-astrology\/in-case-you-think-you-want-to-be-saved\/","title":{"rendered":"In case you think you want to be saved:"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Here we come! Photo by Amanda Painter<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

My local free alt-weekly, the Portland Phoenix, has a cheeky sense of humor along with a commitment to covering issues like state prison abuses. This week, they let the editorial funny bone free with this tabloid-like cover (which actually had me fooled from a distance — didn’t even notice their logo at first) dedicated to the latest predicted date of the Rapture: this Saturday, May 21, 2011. Just in case you haven’t caught wind of this one yet, 89-year-old radio evangelist Harold Camping has decided, after “a half-century of ‘intensive biblical study’,” that tomorrow’s the day. Again. Camping first predicted the Rapture almost twenty years ago in a book called 1994?<\/em> But as one of Camping’s followers notes to Phoenix writer Chris Faraone, who embedded himself with a group of believers<\/strong><\/a> as they stormed NYC last week, “That one had a question mark. This one has an exclamation point.”<\/p>\n

Personally, as someone who helps edit and proofread Planet Waves, I think it’s nice to see punctuation getting its due.<\/p>\n

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Thankfully, the Phoenix only dedicated two pages inside the paper to the story; just enough to cover what has become a media phenomenon but not the ink you’d expect a paper to use on a true crisis. One page is the first-hand account mentioned above (well worth reading). The second, just as illuminating, is a Q and A piece<\/strong><\/a> on some basic Rapture ‘facts’, titled God Hates FAQs: Everything you always wanted to know about the Rapture, but were afraid to ask.<\/em><\/p>\n

Apparently that catchy title, with its play on the sound of “FAQs,” holds a a key to what’s behind this (pun unintended): “Judgment Day, according to the Rapture movement, is directly analogous to the destruction of the Sodomites for trying to have anal intercourse with Lot. In other words, the End Times is primarily about Jesus punishing butt-fuckers.” That is, dispensationalist theory<\/strong><\/a>, which was invented in the 1820s-30s, is not based on the teachings of Jesus. It’s based on a biblical hermeneutic<\/a> inflamed by homophobia and sexual hysteria. It seems all Rapturists believe the End Times are being signaled by widespread gay sex; the difference between Camping and the “mainstream” dispensationalists is that he believes we’re already well over quota.<\/p>\n

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If you’re wondering why Planet Waves is even bothering to give this issue any attention when there are a multitude of important things that need our attention, here is my answer — and I can really only speak for myself. In addition to the fact that I think the whole thing is rich fodder for humor (really — Facebook is rampant), I do think the focus on Judgment Day is worth looking into for what it says about us. As I mentioned in a comment to another post the other day, I don’t think this could get such traction if it did not hook into some little piece of so many people that does wonder what if?<\/em> in spite of themselves. <\/p>\n

There’s something in here about our culture-wide fear — even if we’re ‘not religious’ — of being watched and judged; something about our fear of sex, but also fear of our own<\/em> sex — that is, ourselves. If you’ve been reading Eric’s thoughts on masturbation for a while, you know that taboos on masturbation likely fall under the umbrella of “fear of same-sex sex,” and that brings into play a taboo on knowing ourselves — a taboo which has the effect of getting us to relinquish our power. Fear of sex is in some sense a fear of our own creative power, and the flip side of the creation coin is destruction — death. Clearly this fervent need to believe one can be ‘saved’ speaks of a fear of not existing far more than it speaks of faith<\/em>.<\/p>\n

The shadows behind the Rapture joke are deep, mostly unseen, a bit circular. I’m afraid if I keep writing at this point, I’ll just talk myself in circles rather than cover new ground or reach a deeper conclusion. So I’ll turn the floor over to comments with this, something Fe Bongolan reminded us of with her Rapture piece a couple weeks ago: it’s still May, aka National Masturbation Month. You know what to do.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My local free alt-weekly, the Portland Phoenix, has a cheeky sense of humor along with a commitment to covering issues like state prison abuses. This week, they let the editorial funny bone free with this tabloid-like cover (which actually had me fooled from a distance — didn’t even notice their logo at first) dedicated to … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":191,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"generate_page_header":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38876"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/191"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38876"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38876\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38876"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38876"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38876"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}