Sunday, July 24, 2011

St. Rayford, avatar of the Holy LaHaye

There's a really weird mention in here about Nicky Apennines's health care plan. I have no idea why they put it in there unless they plan on saying that anyone trying to reform health care is out to get you. This would go well with their hatred of anti-war activists. Think I'm reading too much into this? Look at the quote.

"Should the death toll reach as high as 25 percent," the doctor continued, "we will need these new directives to govern life from the womb to the tomb. Our planet can be brought from the brink of death to a shining new state never before imagined."


So any reform to status quo is bad apparently.

Anyway so Ryan tells Judd and they decide to fake out the eeevil pilot by pretending that Ryan has appendicitis and make a break for it when the pilot lands the plane and get back to the church where they meet up with Token Jew and Rayford. That's right: LaHaye's Mary Sue surrogate finally makes an appearance in this novel. Okay he had been mentioned before but I'm counting this as a first appearance because it's the first time he's actually interacting with the YTF. Rayford suggests the kids go in the hole-in-the-ground but Judd isn't game for it saying that he believes Zod can use the kids as well as the adults.

Not much happens in the rest of this chapter except that Token Jew receives a picture of his dead family and for once we get a human reaction as he weeps over it.

Next chapter. Occasionally when you read these books, you will stumble onto one line that is just full of wrong. This one line happens in this chapter when we get mention of John and Mark, the other two members of the YTF who receive even less attention than Lionel and Ryan because Ellanjay doesn't know how to handle multiple characters. Anyway, it is mentioned that John is going to college. Now in any novel, this would be the practical move of a young man, but in a novel where the world has less than seven years to live, it just makes the reader :headdesk:. School only makes sense if the world has a future but it doesn't!

Next is Bruce's funeral and St. Rayford, avatar of the Holy LaHaye, uses this opportunity to preach a sermon. Here it is in all its one-paragraph glory.

"If you had asked people five minutes before the Rapture what Christians taught about God and heaven," Rayford said, "nine in ten of would have said to live a good life, do the best you can, be kind, and hope for the best. It sounded good but it was wrong! The Bible says our good deeds are worthless. We have all sinned. All of us are worthy of the punishment of death."


And all of you are going to die regardless of whether you said the magic words or not. RTCs' denial of the reality of death strikes again!

Also if none of our good deeds matter, then why do our bad deeds count so strongly against us? Why aren't our bad deeds equally worthless?

The funeral ends with Judd being arrested by the pilot. Something tells me, though, ultimately nothing will come of this. I cite as example Vicki's multiple stays in the detention center.

10 comments:

aunursa said...

Also if none of our good deeds matter, then why do our bad deeds count so strongly against us? Why aren't our bad deeds equally worthless?

From what I gather, it's a matter of God's grading on a standard of perfection. It doesn't matter if you score 99% if the minimum passing grade is 100%. I suppose it would be like a kid who scores 59%.* Ultimately none of his correct scores count for him, because he still failed.

* In one Simpsons episode, after studying extremely hard for a test, Bart learned that he scored a 59. His teacher, Mrs. Krabappel tried to comfort her distraught student: "Well a 59 is a high F."

Rachel McG said...

The Bible does not either say that good deeds are worthless. It's one of the biggest lies of RTCism, and it drives me crazy. What about the parable of the Samaritan? What about the questions about the sheep and goats? Our deeds define us. They are everything.

Firedrake said...

I think that many people work on an ethical system at odds with the one they profess. A person is good or bad. Any action taken by a bad person is a wrong action; any action taken by a good person is a right action. So a bad person reforming health-care is just showing how bad he is...

(I've noticed this in particular with fans of a certain radio soap in the UK. Once they've decided a character is "nasty", anything he does no matter how helpful is taken as evidence of his nastiness...)

I guess that since the strawman of being "soft on crime" has to be attacked here as much as anything else, the New World Order prisons are cushy places that let you out when you say you're sorry. (Unless your crime was Being A Christian, of course.)

aunursa said...

Any action taken by a bad person is a wrong action; any action taken by a good person is a right action. So a bad person reforming health-care is just showing how bad he is...

I've seen that more with the abortion issue, how each side demonizes their opponents. Based on the claims of their most vocal opponents, one side wants to kill helpless babies, while the other side wants to control women's bodies.

By contrast, I haven't seen such demonziation regarding health care. I've heard both sides health care act say that their opponents are misguided, not that they're bad. (Although there were exceptions, e.g. Alan Grayson.)

Most political issues involve the conflict between two or more values (e.g. liberty, equality, right to life, property rights). When values conflict, each side places emphasis on different values. By emphasising certain values, each side takes a different path to reach a solution. It doesn't make one side good and one side bad.

BabyRaptor said...

"I've seen that more with the abortion issue, how each side demonizes their opponents. Based on the claims of their most vocal opponents, one side wants to kill helpless babies, while the other side wants to control women's bodies."

Not to start a flame war, but...What about making a medical procedure done to a woman's body illegal *isn't* telling said woman what she can and cannot do with her own body? I don't care if you believe a fetus is a person or not, legally stopping a woman from doing something to her body is controlling what she can do to her body. That's not demonizing, it's telling the truth.

Ivan said...

"We are all worth of the punishment of death." Well, we're all getting that, only a handfull of the weirdest cults deny that part.

"It sounded good..." So perhaps you should explain a bit why the good God doesn't work like that. If this was polytheism he could have an excuse, saying he wants to uplift the imperfect people he found (though it would have hints of "Divine man's burden", so to speak), but seeing how he made humans and the frigging tree of knowledge, he is fully to blame himself. The free will excuse doesn't fly either if not a single person in history could 'choose' to be good. That means there's a design flaw God. Do some better Q&A testing, or bring out a patch, but don't go blaming your creations.

Also, nice to see further support of the slacktivist theory that L&J subscribe to Lutherism-ism. Rayford seems to say here that they are all Left Behind not because they didn't believe in Jesus, but because they didn't believe in believing in Jesus.

aunursa said...

legally stopping a woman from doing something to her body is controlling what she can do to her body

Abortion opponents don't consider a fetus to be part of the woman's body.

Mink said...

The Bible says our good deeds are worthless. We have all sinned. All of us are worthy of the punishment of death."

F*** you, Rayford, and the hack writer and hack theologian you're a sockpuppet for. F*** you and the fully-loaded genital analogue you few in on.

Although I suppose in a way, Raystard is right: HIS good deeds -- and by extension those of LaHaye and Jenkins -- are worthless because they have no fragging conception of doing good deeds for anyone except themselves. I suppose they can't justify shitty writing and milking premillenial dispensationalist eschatology as 'good deeds' no matter how much they try.

... Sorry. Guess Ellenjay pushed another button. :(

Apocalypse Review said...

F*** [Rayford] and the fully-loaded genital analogue [he] few in on.

I LOLed so hard. XD

Mau de Katt said...

There's a really weird mention in here about Nicky Apennines's health care plan. I have no idea why they put it in there unless they plan on saying that anyone trying to reform health care is out to get you.

The key is this phrase: "we will need these new directives to govern life from the womb to the tomb." That "govern life from womb-to-tomb" bit is a classic phrase that pops up again and again in SOCIALIZM-IZ-EEEEEEEvuhl!!! rants.