Books

[asterroc]

I've decided I hate preachy religious books that masquerade as fiction. "Left Behind" and "Summer's Path" are two examples.

"Left Behind" I read a year or two ago because I felt it was an important cultural work, and might help me understand the mind of the evangelist. The premise is that one day half of the world's population disappears suddenly, leaving behind their clothing and all worldly goods, and the remaining people slowly come to the realization that they have missed the Rapture. While I do feel that witnessing something like this would be compelling, the manner in which the main characters become converted is unrealistic. Right after the rapture happens the main character and his college-aged daughter are skeptical and confused about the disappearance of the mother and baby brother. Then the father attends a sermon and suddenly sees the light. He takes his daughter to the priest and she suddenly sees the light as well. Mere exposure to The Holy Word is all it takes for them to suddenly become utterly converted.

"Summer's Path" I am reading the audiobook b/c Audible.com gave it away for free and I thought it was fantasy. I was deceived - it's New Age pseudo-Christian evangelism. The main character is dying of terminal cancer and contemplating suicide (this book is not for the triggery) when he meets a non-denominational angel who offers to take over his body for him. The main character only passingly wonders if the angel is an alien body snatcher, and never wonders whether it's a devil instead because the angel tells him to "trust his feelings". The book is now devolving into preaching about how all physical ills are caused by not being in touch with your emotions, and depression is caused by suppressing your physical sensations. No that doesn't make any sense to me either. The main character (now in the body of a dog) is currently sitting in a car with some New Age hippies (who keep calling the angel now in the main character's body a hippie, ironically) who are guiding him in connecting with his inner energy source, and of course he believes it as soon as he hears about it and is able to do it on the first try.

Yeah, if religion really worked that way - all you needed was to be exposed to the One True Religion to suddenly convert - then just about everyone in the world would have come to the same One True Religion by now.

Comments

[q10.livejournal.com]

i'm always confused by the same effect in the narrative structure of Jack Chick tracts, which very often involve people who have never been exposed to the idea that Jesus Christ is God and that he died for their sins and so forth. i mean, they act like they've never heard anybody say this before. them somebody explains about that much to them and they see the light almost instantly. i know we heathens aren't up on all the fine details of the theology, but i think that most of us know that much about the standard story. it's not that we don't know what the message is, it's that we don't buy it, right?

on the other hand, i think the subjective experience of a lot of religious converts - and, more generally, of a lot of people who've had major changes of mind about anything - is that there's just a moment where it finally clicks where you get it. it's not like you haven't heard the pieces before, but somehow they don't amount to much to you until they come together and it all makes sense. most of us have had an experience something like this on a smaller scale once or twice in an academic setting. if that's what the subjective experience is like - then writing it that way makes sense. it's not that hearing it once is sufficient to make it totally obvious, it's that a particular instance of hearing it can be the triggering event that makes it all fall into place.

[gemini6ice.livejournal.com]

I hope you have seen the Cthulhu tract.

[zandperl.livejournal.com]

Ooh, I haven't!