forsyth | Left Behind

The Left Behind series is astonishingly bad books, for many reasons. And reading Slacktivist's series of posts about the first book just makes me confused. He's only like 70 pages in. And as a writer, it makes me frustrated, confused, and gives me the urge to write something about the end of the world, because it's huge and dramatic and it's easy to have things to write about. Which doesn't happen in Left Behind. And it makes me wonder where they get this, I don't remember any of it from when I read the Bible. As not religious, it makes me rather read C.S. Lewis, who's much more interesting and better, even if he didn't convince me either. And when I realize how many people read these books and believe that this presents something like an actual literal version of what's going to happen, it scares me shitless. People who actually believe the world is going to end in their lifetimes. That the only thing that matters to make you a good person is reciting the right words. People who put Old Testament rules that went right beside ones about shellfish and how to stone a slave ahead of things like "Love your neighbor". That's scary.

(Barely related, at work today, I saw a CD called, I think "Waiting for redemption", which isn't a horrible title for a CD. But it made me think, "Oh, FFS. You don't get redemption by waiting around. You have to do stuff. And stop doing stuff. And make up for the bad stuff. You can't just wait.")

Tags: Writing, Religion, Links, Mindscribbles, Politics