Messing with the Revelation

I'll continue to address some more popular (i.e. accessible) questions. Although I don't like the format, I feel obliged to do so.

Today I shall touch upon questions of the combination of morality and strategy. And for practical reasons, I'll start with the question whether, when you truthfully lay out a plan, it can still be any good. The simple answer is: Yes, if it is a plan to overcome systemic (i.e. not deliberately created) problems.

That is my overall view on the Revelation, but I'll discuss this in detail based on my interpretation of it. And to make it more interesting, I'll ask whether, when the Revelation truly describes systemic processes, nothing in it can be prevented or artificially caused.

As far as the first five seals are concerned, there is not much sense in asking the latter question, because these are generic events, but by being that it would be difficult to prevent them, i.e.

• that someone would conquer something,
• that someone else would bring about disorder,
• that some agreement would be reached to protect rights,
• that some disease would spread (although ὑπὸ τῶν θηρίων τῆς γῆς) and
• that some idealists would be martyred by the authorities.
  

The sixth seal describes an earthquake and a total solar eclipse and that islands are moved out of their places. It is highly specific, but can not be caused artificially. As for the prevention: If the part about the islands refers to a redrawing of maps, prevention means to suppress the understanding of the spherical shape of the earth. That was tried by the Catholic Church since the times of St. Augustine, who wrote about it in De Civitate Dei, i.e. the need to exclude the existence of continents beyond the great water, which would probably exist on a sphere as big as earth, because there could be people living there and that would invalidate the story of Noah's ark, but the suppression didn't succeed.

The first trumpet is again generic, the second a natural disaster, the third systemic (if the concentration of capital is unavoidable) and a specific astronomical event and the fourth trumpet is again a natural disaster.

There is no messing with the Revelation up to this point, except that the Catholic Church may have sealed 144000 Iberian Sephardic Jews intentionally during the Inquisition and that it likewise may have intentionally given Jan Hus white robes. The latter act is of no consequence, and the former is natural enough, i.e. to broaden the genetic base of the Iberian population a little, before colonising the New World.

As for the fifth trumpet, Nixon and Kissinger may have caused that artificially, but what for? Likewise the Bush family may have caused the sixth trumpet artificially, in that case for more understandable reasons. Both events are specific, and the former may have been successfully prevented, if that would have been a priority. The latter on the other hand is not that easily preventable: Tanks may show up at the Euphrates one way or another.

There is a little trouble with the third vial, but the first, second and fourth vial could have been artificially caused, they are in fact again generic. But what would be the aim of any such manipulation during the end times?

The two obvious prizes are:

1. claiming to be the Messiah,
2. framing the beast.
   

But here there are severe obstacles in the Revelation, namely

1. the two witnesses must die and be resurrected and
   
2. New York City has to be levelled to the ground.
   

If you think that you're speaking for God, but New York City is still standing, at best the world hates you and puts you to death, but you're not the Messiah. And if you want to credibly frame someone as the beast, you'll have to allow him to destroy New York City. So there are price tags here. And since this is so expensive, it is extremely improbable that it should come about by choice. The only credible way it would come about is by necessity, out of the pressures of history. Plus, there need to be two witnesses, whose testimony agrees, so it won't even do, if someone was simply gifted and not addressing the questions of the time.

So, you see, it doesn't benefit an enemy to know this plan. Essentially, it is a prophecy that tells a man:

You shall elect what you want least.

To which the inescapable answer is: Stupid. No way!

That is for single actors. If an entire population would believe that we live in the end times, other effects would come into play. But the Revelation goes against the grain of the common man, who lives for his dreams and can't accept that there should be none for him, unless his dreams were that of a resurrected saint, in which case he would agree with the course of the Revelation, only that, if all people were like that, it would be another one. The prophecy is well protected, it doesn't defeat its own purpose by having been revealed.