a reply to:
neoholographic
I am in sympathy with this line of thought, but I think you need to transfer it to the Harlot. The common mistake in dealing with Revelation is to
fail to distinguish between the Beast and the Harlot which rests on the Beast.
An extract from something I have written for later use;
I see the Harlot of Babylon as a religious establishment, managing human-centred forms of religion, resting upon the support of a political
establishment. A world-religion, or a world-alliance of religions, supplementing the “political religion” of the worship of the Beast. We may be
able to guess what it would look like by projecting forward some of the current trends of modern culture.
...I suggest that we look to environmentalism. We may learn to call this “Climate Change”. I’ve noticed that expression becoming the new,
shortened label for what is, strictly speaking, the campaign against climate change, so that a young enthusiast may claim to “support Climate
Change” without any sense of irony. Concern for the environment is becoming more prevalent in our culture. It is becoming a kind of “background”
belief. Like most forms of political enthusiasm, it resembles religion in a growing intolerance towards opposition or non-participation. At the same
time, scientific environmentalism offers no offence to traditional religions. That makes it a natural “umbrella” belief-system, capable of
embracing religious communities in general.
But what happens when environmentalism ceases to be scientific? If there is any truth in the more pessimistic projections, the time will come when
people begin to lose their trust in scientific solutions. In their despair, they are likely to turn to non-rational solutions. That could be when
Climate Change develops into a more religious outlook. Belief in the power of nature would begin to approach the worship of the gods of nature, which
was prevalent in the Roman world.
The concept of Gaia was put forward in our own time as a metaphor, a label to identify the completeness of this planet as an environment. But when a
less rational generation was beginning to panic about the state of the world, we might expect to see a more conscious personification of Gaia,
preparing the way for appeals to Gaia’s power to help them survive As a literal female figure, she would still be plausibly compatible with many
of the religions of the world. In the Roman Catholic community, the company of different versions of Mary could be expanded, no doubt, by the addition
of “Mary Gaia”, with her own cult and local visions. The Beast from the land could be brought into the system by claiming to be the son of Gaia
(and in that sense the returned Christ).
The trouble would come when the appeals for help were taking the form of religious practices, capable of being understood as involving the worship of
Gaia. Faithful Christians, and probably others, would refuse to participate. Since the cult would be endorsed by the political establishment, they
could, with some reason, identify any compulsory element as the Mark of the Beast. But their failure to participate would be intolerable to the world
at large. If the disputed ceremonies were deemed necessary to ward off droughts, floods, volcanoes and earthquakes, anyone holding back and refusing
to take part would be blamed for causing droughts, floods, volcanoes and earthquakes. The vengeance of the frightened world would be hysterical.
This would be a re-creation of the public hostility which the church experienced from the Roman Empire in Tertullian’s time; “You insist on our
being the causes of every public calamity or injury. If the Tiber has overflowed its banks, if the Nile has remained in its bed, if the sky has been
still, or the earth has been in commotion, if death has made its devastations, or famine its afflictions, your cry immediately is; "This is the fault
of the Christians!"... I suppose it is as despisers of your gods that we call down these strokes of theirs... You incur the chastisement of your gods
because you are too slack in our extirpation” (Tertullian- "Ad Nationes", ch9). This was the popular motive for Christian persecution, just as the
refusal to offer incense to the Emperor was the official reason. There was a flaw in the logic, as Tertullian pointed out; if the gods were angry with
the Christians, why would they express that indirectly by punishing the rest of the world? But we must not expect rationalism in times of heightened
emotion.
That is one possible explanation of the Harlot “drunk with the blood of the saints”. Of course nobody should elevate these thoughts to the status
of “prophecy”. They are a forward projection from current events, and don’t claim to be anything more.
...
edit on 6-10-2021 by DISRAELI because: (no reason given)