I just happened upon an email that has apparently been bouncing around since before Obama was even elected president, The Book of Revelation Describes the Anti-Christ as Someone With Characteristics Matching Those of Barack Obama. I know, I know: crazy right wing conspiracies are nothing new. I suspect there were people claiming that every president, regardless of party, since Roosevelt (pick one) was in fact that anti-Christ. Revelation may have a terrible track record, but the track record of the prediction that people will make nutty predictions based upon Revelation is solid as the law of gravitation.

But some of these things are just too delicious. Anyway, there is only one part of this that I love. Here it is:

Okay, let’s think this through a little bit. The Book of Revelation was written somewhere around the year 95 AD, at the end of the first century—just like much of the New Testament. Muhammad was born sometime in the late sixth century. So it would be pretty amazing if the Book of Revelation really mentioned anything about Muslims. I mean, if it did, everyone would be in agreement that Revelation really does predict the future.

And what does it mean to be of “Muslim descent.” I understand that one can be “racially” Jewish. But Islam isn’t like that—especially for Kenyan Muslims. Of course, this is entirely typical of right wing extremists. Remember the guy who hated Muslims so he killed six people at a Sikh temple? The level of religious ignorance in this country is staggering. We really ought to have religion taught in school, but unfortunately, most people who agree with me don’t want comparative religious studies, they want Christian indoctrination.

Remember when Phil Robertson pronounced that non-Christians were just violent? I wrote, Why Would Anyone Think Jesus Makes You Non-Violent? He even said something that I thought was hilarious: Nazis didn’t have Jesus, even though they were explicitly Christian. But as I noted in the article, “But what about Jainism?” The Jains are the most non-violent people in the world. They literally won’t hurt a bug. Yet most Americans would see them as the same as Muslims: one of those foreign religions.

Now, I know: the Book of Revelation is a wacky bit of literature that seems like it was written by someone having a bad LSD trip. And like Nostradamus’ writing, you can read anything you want into it. But I still think it is funny as hell. Why not just claim that it says the anti-Christ will be the first black president of the United States? “You know, the one that talks pretty?!”

Given the very real economic issues that face this country, I find these kind of unhinged rantings amusing. But in the grand scheme of thing, they are dangerous. I’ll be writing more about that later today.