666 - the LJ-post of the Beast
Nov. 16th, 2004 11:58 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
zotzI've found the surprisingly common fascination with the Revelation of St John the Divine quite puzzling for some years. For an example, see this page on the history and eventual renaming of Route 666. Banksy had Weird name a song this in Espedair Street, and had it cause some controversy. Unsurprisingly there are several songs of that name, but not one of them has become notorious. Perhaps we can blame this on a reluctance by the morally wrecked . . . errr . . . what is the phrase for one consumed by moral rectitude? A moral rectum? "Self-appointed moral paragon" has the right ring, but is a trifle long - anyway, reluctance on the part of moral rectums to make heroes of their enemies. Do they have such a reluctance these days? They certainly didn't use to. Back in the day, Dead Kennedys and W.A.S.P. both got monstrous amounts of publicity from the Moral Majority's outrage - although I hasten to add that the similarity ends there. DKs had a social agenda and felt no kinship with a lot of their co-accused ("is Satan all you can think of?") past the need to defend freedom of speech.
Which, of course, brings us to stuff like the Number Of The Beast and all of these soi-disant satanist bands and musicians (and indeed satanists and satanism generally). Childish, or what? What's the attraction or interest in any of this? Does it have any actual worth past an urge to shock? I can't see any. I've listened to all the stuff about Crowley and LaVey and Satan being a symbol and all the rest, and frankly it's like listening to a flat-earther go through the arguments about the moon-landings. People who have sincere religious belief I can understand. Not having any, obviously, I have a very firm grasp of, and likewise not-being-sure, not-caring, and so on. All the stuff that tries, knowingly but awkwardly, to sit in between - Elron Hubbard et all - just strikes me as wankery. Everybody hates a fence-sitter, and I'm no exception. Sometimes the middle is excluded for very good reasons.
The revelation itself is quite . . . interesting. Allegorical tirade against the Roman Empire or ergot-fuelled ravings? Well, the fact that it was written down indicates that John still had his fingers afterwards, so perhaps the former - unless he had a good secretary. This does seem to be the general view, and fits nicely with the rest of the NT, which seems to assume that the Second Coming was going to be quite soon and people should get their houses in order quickly. The opinion about the number of the beast here is that it's a reference to Nero, which it may be. Of course, if you don't know exactly when a tract waas written it's probably difficult to say who precisely the invective might be aimed at. Of course, a few years ago I read an article claiming that it was all about the EEC (as it still was then), which probably tells you more about political and religious debate in this country than the author would have been happy with.
There's a page here on the subject, which among other things mentions gematria, the numerological system thought to be involved. this was also used, of course, by Jaz Coleman to make artistic decisions concerning at least one Killing Joke album. I don't remember which one, but I do remember it being pilloried by the critics. Numerology's an interesting topic - my favurite application of it is to find an astronomer and inquire in an innocent tone about Bode's law. Never fails.
In tangentially related news, I see that Dean Hamer is back in the news. Having previously claimed to have located a gene involved in sexuality (a not uncontroversial claim at the time, but one which seems to have been vindicated), he's now got a book out concerning finding (he believes) a gene involved in spirituality. Clearly not a man to avoid the big questions. Apparently there's nothing published in the technical literature as yet, which is a little annoying. Presumably it's done with a combination of questionnaires and linkage analysis, as before, but it would be nice to see something a little more solid on the work supporting this rather interesting hypothesis. As I recall from the radio (Today program, Radio 4, yesterday), their analysis indicates one QTL of large enough impact to be discernable by their analysis, although he suspects there will be more involved in the tendency. He was also making a distinction between a general tendency towards spirituality and formal religion. I think he suspects that the raw genetic factors will have a greater contribution to the former than the latter.
This, of course, follows on from the realisation that certain centres in the brain - in the temporal lobe, IIRC - are involved in spiritual feeling, which in turn follows from the longstanding observation that temporal-lobe epilepsy can lead to hyperreligiosity (Ezekiel apparently being a particular suspect). Karen Armstrong apparently had undiagnosed (and therefore untreated) temporal-lobe epilepsy for some years and has commented on what it feels like, but I don't have it to hand.
Apparently Mary Doria Russell's third novel, A Thread of Grace, is due out on the 1st of February. Her website says so, Amazon say so, Random House say so , so I guess it's happening. Not long to wait now.
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no subject
Date: 2004-11-16 04:15 am (UTC)Generally that you are working in a two valued logic system. While googling I came across this:
Theorem: there is no proof of this assertion.
Proof: suppose the contrary - that there were a proof of the assertion, constituting a counter-example to the assertion. This being absurd, reductio proves the assertion.
which I wish I'd thought of myself.
no subject
Date: 2004-11-16 04:19 am (UTC)That makes sense, I guess.
I was reading a bit recently about links between religious beliefs and conditions such as OCD and NPD.
no subject
Date: 2004-11-16 04:20 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-11-16 04:21 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-11-16 04:25 am (UTC)Jon courtney grimwood's new book should be out any time now if you read his things... i'm really looking forward to it, though the title's kinda a cliche
no subject
Date: 2004-11-16 04:26 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-11-16 04:29 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-11-16 04:32 am (UTC)Gödel derailed this project in the most spectacular manner possible: he showed that any logical system capable of supporting Peano's axioms
* could not be both consistent and complete; and
* could not prove itself consistent without proving itself inconsistent.
no subject
Date: 2004-11-16 04:39 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-11-16 04:44 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-11-16 04:45 am (UTC)http://www.halcyon.com/jmashmun/npd/traits.html#relig
Warning - defensive heavy metal fan
Date: 2004-11-16 04:54 am (UTC)You may not have meant to refer specifically to Iron Maiden here, but in case you did I feel the need to take anal exception to them being lumped in with 'soi-disant satanist bands and musicians' ;-) The song Number of the Beast is an all time favourite for the Moral Majority of course and frequently cited as an example of a song inciting satanism, buggering of chickens and taking of one's own life for the Dark Lord - but if they actually bothered to listen to the lyrics (perish the thought!) they'd discover that in fact the song is about a person who witnesses some sort of satanic ritual, is utterly terrified by it and drawn to it against his will. Despite the notorious status of this song I have never met/encountered a Maiden fan who takes this song as anything other than one of the band's many, varied explorations of belief, spirituality, the division between reality and vision, the possibility of an afterlife and its nature, etc. And, more generally, I've met very few self-identified pagans/satanists on the metal scene. That's not to say that there aren't heavy metal bands who actually 'do' the satanist thing, but many of those who are identified by the MM as 'being satanic' simply aren't. For example I have heard arguments that KISS is supposed to stand for Kings in Service of Satan, which is just ludicrous - bands like this are being castigated for the generic immorality espoused in their songs, and the 'otherness' of their appearance/lifestyle, which (presumably the argument goes) *must* therefore rest on some 'satanic' belief/practice as these go against normative Christian/societal values.
Please do pardon the rant here :-)
The Revelation is a v interesting text though, and you're quite right to point out the importance of its historical context. I've been to Patmos and visited the shrine encasing the cave in which St J is supposed to have written it!
no subject
Date: 2004-11-16 05:04 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-11-16 05:34 am (UTC)Re: Warning - defensive heavy metal fan
Date: 2004-11-16 05:40 am (UTC)Nice rant, though. Point taken.
I've been to Patmos and visited the shrine
That's quite impressive. Did you feel any urge to write an apocalypse of your very own?
no subject
Date: 2004-11-16 05:41 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-11-16 05:48 am (UTC)Re: Warning - defensive heavy metal fan
Date: 2004-11-16 05:52 am (UTC)Like 90% of my record collection ;-).
no subject
Date: 2004-11-16 05:54 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-11-16 06:00 am (UTC)The narcissistic thing's interesting too. The whole way that people talk about personality disorders generally is interesting. There seems to have been a slight expansion of number in the last couple of decades. I'm sure there are more than there were. There are these lovely surveys saying that some disturbingly high proportion of the populace has one, which makes me wonder how (or, indeed, whether) we have well-adjusted people wandering around still.
Re: Warning - defensive heavy metal fan
Date: 2004-11-16 06:00 am (UTC)oh certainly - and particularly in Scandinavia of course, where there's a significant proportion of very explicitly Satan-worshipping bands. But the way in which 'satanic' has become a synonym for 'morally reprehensible' and therefore even used of a band like Bon Jovi is quite fascinating. Although I daresay that
I can remember being told are satanists is Madge "bloody" Manson
Oh yes - he goes on about meeting LaVey in his autobiog. and used to bang on about being a member of the Church of Satan, although interestingly his songs tend to rant about the 'hypocritical' state of American society rather than being about Satan per se. Although I suppose that feeds into LaVey's brand of satanism, as I (imperfectly) understand it!
That's quite impressive. Did you feel any urge to write an apocalypse of your very own?
!!! Unfortunately not, although it was quite an amazing place - a cave at the bottom of a flight of steps. I do like a nice shrine ;-) I tried to find a good photo online but the best I've come up with is the one included here (http://www.ourfatherlutheran.net/biblehomelands/sevenchurches/patmos/patmos.htm). It's a lovely island too, less well known and therefore less touristy than some of the others.
no subject
Date: 2004-11-16 06:07 am (UTC)Well, I don't suppose there's anyone (with the possible exception of my friend Vicky) who is totally sorted out about their life.
On the other hand there does seem to be a tendency to find names for things which are perfectly normal (if less than ideal) aspects of human behaviour and declare them to be mental disorders. This can sometimes be useful, if it helps people escape from crippling guilt at their moral failings, but it's less good if it's used as an excuse to avoid changing things "because I can't help it, see, I'm ill"
no subject
Date: 2004-11-16 06:17 am (UTC)Of course not. Obviously.
Not that I read papers at all these days, of course.
Re: Warning - defensive heavy metal fan
Date: 2004-11-16 06:25 am (UTC)Re: Warning - defensive heavy metal fan
Date: 2004-11-16 06:29 am (UTC)Re: Warning - defensive heavy metal fan
Date: 2004-11-16 06:32 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-11-16 08:21 am (UTC)I particularly like The Rev Dr John Polkinghorne's reaction:
"The idea of a god gene goes against all my personal theological convictions. You can't cut faith down to the lowest common denominator of genetic survival."
Is it just me, or does that sound a lot like "Lalalalalalalnotlisteningnotlisteningnotlistening"?
no subject
Date: 2004-11-16 08:35 am (UTC)Re: Warning - defensive heavy metal fan
Date: 2004-11-16 08:40 am (UTC)Re: Warning - defensive heavy metal fan
Date: 2004-11-16 08:49 am (UTC)Re: Warning - defensive heavy metal fan
Date: 2004-11-16 08:53 am (UTC)I'm quite fond of them.
Re: Warning - defensive heavy metal fan
Date: 2004-11-16 09:00 am (UTC)What sort of vermin, incidentally? A lot fo people would regard that as socially very positive, depending on what yur definition of vermin is. There have been some very dubious ones, of course.
Re: Warning - defensive heavy metal fan
Date: 2004-11-16 09:06 am (UTC)Still the funniest 'body modification' story is Evan Seinfeld of Biohazard who has 'State Of The World Adress' tattooed across his stomach. Or Phil Anselmo of Pantera who has 'Unscarred' in a similar position ;-).
Re: Warning - defensive heavy metal fan
Date: 2004-11-16 09:08 am (UTC)Re: Warning - defensive heavy metal fan
Date: 2004-11-16 09:09 am (UTC)Re: Warning - defensive heavy metal fan
Date: 2004-11-16 09:10 am (UTC)Re: Warning - defensive heavy metal fan
Date: 2004-11-16 09:13 am (UTC)He *now* says that he'd found a nest of them in his attic, waited until they grew up & left the nest, then blocked the hole, but one got into his attic & was chewing on cables & stuff & he couldn't catch it. Shooting it was a last resort...
no subject
Date: 2004-11-16 09:19 am (UTC)Re: Warning - defensive heavy metal fan
Date: 2004-11-16 09:23 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-11-16 09:31 am (UTC)I'm sure that Hamer's not actually claiming sexuality or spirituality are genetically determined, but the use of the shorthand "God gene" & "Gay gene" certainly make it sound that way (& make better headlines).
Re: Warning - defensive heavy metal fan
Date: 2004-11-16 09:38 am (UTC)"Weeeeeell, I'm a keen fisherman, so I thought I'd symbolise it with a big pair of Pollocks on my back."
[Tatooist hastily tries to rub out tatoo]
Re: Warning - defensive heavy metal fan
Date: 2004-11-16 09:46 am (UTC)He also says that it's been animal rights activists making most of the death threats, not christian fundies, which wouldn't surprise me much.
no subject
Date: 2004-11-16 01:04 pm (UTC)