The Blind Flaw

On my way home today, I passed a small group of people who were standing on the sidewalk, handing out pamphlets about the supposed rapture event tomorrow.  Now, normally, I'm mostly content to allow anyone their beliefs, as long as they allow me mine.  These people, however, I find offensive.  Not because they believe in their god, nor even because they were out passing around their tracts.  What bothers me about them is that they follow their belief in total blindness, without any ability to recognize or even question what they are told.

Christianity claims the Bible as a source of truth, the infallible word of god, and Christians are supposed to draw their conclusions about morality, theology, and many other things, using the light of this book.  The explanation of why May 21, 2011, is supposed to be the day of the rapture uses a combination of numerological tricks based on various verses in the Bible.  Yet, it ignores the simple fact that the Bible itself says that predicting the day of the rapture is impossible.

In the gospel of Mark, the second book of the new testament, is recounted a series of statements made by Jesus himself about the end days.  After making several points about it, in Mark 13:32, he delivers this punchline, "But of that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven nor the Son, but the Father alone."  The same words are used in the book of Matthew, as well.  If you accept the Bible as truth, holy words from god, then you must, perforce, reject the statement of any man who claims to know when Jesus is coming back, because the Bible says, "no one knows".

People who believe whatever they are told, without thinking, without taking the time to even resolve discrepancies between things they are told, are dangerous, not just to themselves, but to everyone around them.  They are the worst sort of slaves, those who have surrendered their rational faculties of their own volition.  They are the pillars of tyranny, the power base upon which an oppressor can raise himself up, if only he harnesses enough of them.  They are the flaw in Majority Rule.